


Hand On My Back

by Fringuello



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Gen, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 13:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16855072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fringuello/pseuds/Fringuello
Summary: A post-series story, focused on Finch (in Italy) and Shaw (in New York), as both work to move on with their lives while still caught up in memories of the past. The story was inspired by Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song “Hand On My Back.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mary Chapin Carpenter’s album _The Things That We Are Made Of_ came out in the spring of 2016, and I listened to it many times as the final season of _Person of Interest_ was being broadcast. To my mind, the bittersweet and elegiac mood of the song “Hand on My Back” from the album, with its repeating title image, connected perfectly with the relationship between Harold Finch and John Reese, and also with the tone of the series’ path to its conclusion. Then the episode “return 0” offered dialogue that established an additional point of connection, attaching the song even more firmly, in my estimation, to the culmination of the series.
> 
> If I possessed the necessary technical expertise, I would use “Hand on My Back” as a perfect accompaniment for a video of scenes from the series. Since that’s not my skill set, I chose instead to write a story about the thoughts of two survivors. Fortunately, the Big Bang challenge offered me the opportunity to collaborate with an artist. Many thanks to Aragarna for agreeing to take on an additional Big Bang project; she created the banners, which pair lyrics from the song with images from the series. They are inserted just before the portion of the text that the lyrics inspired.
> 
> VJ, a long-time on-line friend from a different fandom, also enjoys PoI, and graciously agreed to be my beta for the story. I am grateful to Sheilacasmam for serving as my advisor on Italian culture and dialogue. The meaning of most of the Italian references and dialogue contained in the story can easily be deduced from context, but translations are available in the end notes.
> 
> The story takes place approximately six months after the events of “return 0.”

**[New York City, May 23, 2016, 23:33:47]**

Shaw rushed down the dark alley. Reaching a corner, the compact yet powerful woman halted and carefully peered around it, all coiled energy, ready to release. The Number, Michael Remus, a tall, thin man with stringy brown hair and a chin and neck covered by a scraggly beard, was just visible in the dim light. He was pointing a revolver at a trembling young woman with blonde hair and sharply drawn features, as she pressed herself back against a building, a look of terror building on her face. Remus leered at her, cruel eyes gleaming. “You didn’t really think that you could get away from me, did you, Joanna?”

“Please, Michael. Let me go!” Joanna sobbed, chin trembling.

“Now, now. It’s too dangerous for a beautiful young woman like you to be on her own.” Remus moved in closer and began caressing Joanna’s pale cheek with the snub of his revolver. “You need me,” he crooned. “You know you do. Who’s going to take care of you if I’m not around?”

Joanna closed her eyes in despair—only to jerk them open in surprise a moment later at the sudden report of a gunshot, followed by a sharp scream of pain from Remus. She looked down in surprise to see that her assailant had collapsed to the ground, rolling around while holding his knee and grimacing in pain.

Keeping her weapon trained on Remus, Shaw stepped over to him and kicked away the weapon that he had dropped. “I think she’ll be able to take care of herself just fine, now that you won’t be around any more.” The expressionless look on her face conveyed only an utter lack of concern for any threat the man might still offer.

Joanna gaped at her in shock. “Are you all right?” Shaw asked. Shaken, the blonde woman could only nod dumbly. “Then I think that it’s time for you to leave. Michael and I need to have a little chat.” Joanna frowned in confusion and disbelief. “Go ahead. You don’t have to worry about this scumbag any more. He’s about to have a permanent change of address.”

“Okay,” said the Joanna, hesitantly, taking a few backward steps before turning to leave. As she reached the corner, she looked back at Shaw. “Thank you.” She hurried out of the alley.

Having recovered somewhat from the initial shock of being shot, Remus opted for bravado, turning his head to glare at Shaw. “Interfering bitch!” he spat. “Joanna needs me. She can’t get along without me.”

Shaw stared back at him, unimpressed. “You know what they say. A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Remus snarled. “When I’m through with you, you’re going to wish you’d never been born.” As he began struggling to get to his feet, Shaw stepped over and kicked his injured knee; he sank back to the ground with another scream of pain.

“Now, don’t get testy, Michael,” said Shaw. “I’m afraid you’re going to be too busy to put me in my place. There’s that little matter of your parole violation,” said Shaw. “Indiana wants you.” The sound of an approaching siren gradually increased in volume, until a blue sedan with flashing lights darted into the alley, squealing to a halt. A short, stocky man with light brown, curly hair stepped out of the car. “Nice of you to finally show up, Lionel,” said Shaw.

“Some of us actually work for a living, Sunshine,” replied the detective. “I’ve got my own arrests to take care of. I can’t spend all my time finishing up your jobs for you.” He pulled out his handcuffs and walked over to where Remus was still writhing.

“Sure you can, Lionel. Clean-up is your specialty,”

Fusco frowned. “Yeah, yeah. Get out of here before somebody else shows up and we have to start explaining things.” Smiling sardonically, Shaw pivoted on her heel and strode out of the alley.

“Nice work, sweetie,” a voice said, coyly, in Shaw’s ear. “But don’t you think you cut it a bit close?”

“Don’t start with me,” responded Shaw, impatiently. “If _someone_ hadn’t downloaded every message Remus tweeted over the last six months, I could have been following him when he located the museum where Joanna works two days ago.”

“Didn’t the tweets help you find out that he had been stalking women since he came to the city?”

“Yes, but since I was busy checking out all of those women to make sure they were safe, I missed the fact that Remus used a stolen phone to get Joanna’s schedule from her secretary. It took me too long to figure out that it was Joanna that he was after.”

“Sounds like you could use more help. Shall I recruit another partner for you?”

Shaw bristled at the question, which the Machine had asked her several times over the past few months. She had no interest in adding a new member to the team. Being close to people hadn’t exactly worked out well for her. First, the ISA had killed off the only person she liked, her partner, Cole, leaving her gun shy about the idea of working with other people ever again. But she had been intrigued enough by the mission that Harold Finch and John Reese had offered to her to give it a try. At first, she had stepped back after each case in order to maintain her independence; over time, however, she realized that, whether she had intended to or not, she had formed bonds with her team members.

Then, once again, she found herself dealing with loss—with death—so many deaths. Joss Carter. John Reese. Root. When Finch decided he could no longer continue with the mission, she had been relieved that he had at least agreed to leave Bear with her, so that she wasn’t completely abandoned. Well, there was Fusco. Fusco was all right. He wasn’t one to get all sentimental, and that suited Shaw just fine. They operated at arms’ length, and gave each other as good as they got. Shaw was not going to make the mistake of getting too close to anyone again.

“Don’t bother trying to find me a new partner,” said Shaw, flatly. “Fusco’s back from his vacation with his son. We’ll manage just fine.”

“Wouldn’t _you_ like to take a vacation sometime?”

“I don’t do vacations,” replied Shaw acerbically. “Now let me grab some dinner in peace.”

“Of course, sweetie.” The Machine cut the connection.

Eleven minutes later, the lights turned on automatically as Shaw entered the subway base, gobbling a slice of pizza. With a short bark of greeting, Bear loped over to her. “Hello, handsome,” she said, reaching down to scratch the dog behind his ears. “Sorry I couldn’t take you with me this time. Next time, I promise. Are you hungry?” Bear quietly woofed in approval as Shaw refilled his food bowl, and began eating with a vengeance the moment she stepped back.

Shaw moved over to the chair sitting in front of the Machine, the only open place to sit amid the rubble that took up most of the space in the station. Frankly, she hadn’t seen any point in wasting time or effort cleaning up the destruction wrought by the combination of the weapons fired by Samaritan’s agents and the explosives that she and Fusco had detonated so the subway car could travel out of the abandoned station, removing the Machine from Samaritan’s grasp. In truth, since the Machine could contact her anywhere, there really was no practical reason to maintain the space at all. Given how much she had lost as a result of the final battle with Samaritan, however, Shaw had found herself surprisingly reluctant to abandon this last remaining physical connection to the past. 

She had had to work out a new set of logistics for handling the Numbers. The Machine had rebooted itself as an open system, which meant that it frequently provided sufficient information to make it easier to determine whether a Number was a victim or a perpetrator. However, the system also had a drawback—the Machine had a tendency to provide such massive amounts of information that Shaw sometimes found it a challenge to ferret out the most pertinent details. This challenge had resulted in frustration more than once in the past few months, with Shaw frozen into momentary inaction as she struggled to sort through the flood of details being poured into her ear. 

Gradually, the Machine was learning how to sort and prioritize the information, thus lessening Shaw’s information overload. But that was not the only part of the Numbers process that had changed from the original operation. Since Harold had decided he was no longer willing to continue on the team, the Machine now performed the handler duties that had previously been his province. And, for Shaw, that meant listening to Root’s voice, morning, noon, and night—in fact, much more frequently than she had ever listened to the woman while she was still alive.

For a long time, Shaw had found herself continually brought up short by the sound of the Machine speaking in her ear. It had taken months, but, for the most part, she had adjusted to the familiar voice coming from a new source. Still, there were times when hearing Root’s voice rubbed her nerves a bit raw. The Machine might have mastered the woman’s flirtatious banter, but in some ways, having a version of Root present in such an insubstantial form was worse than having her gone entirely; it served as a constant reminder of what was missing, much as it had felt when Shaw, as a child, had explored with her tongue the empty space left by a missing tooth.

All of her life, Shaw had been a creature who operated by practicality, not sentiment. She managed sexual intimacy the same way that she did meals: she ate when she was hungry, sated her appetite, then moved on, never planning to return or worrying where the next meal would come from. But Root had begun to change that, by challenging Shaw at every turn, constantly knocking her off her balance, and refusing to accept her rejections as a final answer. Over time, the infuriatingly persistent woman had somehow managed to worm her way to Shaw’s very core.

That was why Root could serve as the anchor that enabled Shaw to hold on to a scrap of her sanity while being held captive and subjected to Samaritan’s ministrations. When Shaw had actually managed to free herself and return to New York, she had resolved to remain separate from the team, no longer trusting her own perception of reality, uncertain whether she still carried Samaritan’s chip in her head. But Root had found her, and refused to let her go. Only when Root had shown she was willing to put a bullet in her own brain did Shaw finally begin to believe that she might indeed be free.

Then, suddenly, before Shaw even had a chance to re-establish her bearings, Root was gone, felled by a Samaritan assassin. There had been little opportunity for Shaw to deal with her loss at the time, given the rising pitch of the final battle between Samaritan and the Machine. Even now, when Shaw opened her eyes some mornings, it still took a few moments before she truly believed that she wasn’t operating inside one of Samaritan’s nightmare simulations.

The routine of handling the Numbers was all that grounded Shaw’s current existence. But the constant presence of Root’s voice, coming into her ear from the Machine, also made it impossible for her to avoid thinking about all of the “what ifs” and “might have beens” between her and Root. Shaw supposed that the Machine would change its voice if she requested it. But how could she even consider making such a request when she knew that Root would have considered the Machine’s selection of her voice as the highest possible honor?

“No sleep for you tonight, sweetie,” the Machine announced unexpectedly, shaking Shaw out of her reverie.

Shaw sighed. “Who’s the new Number?”

“Peter Hutchins.” The Machine flashed an image of a driver’s license on the monitor; Shaw looked up to see the face of a middle-aged African American man, graying hair closely cropped to his head. “An arson investigator for the fire department since 2007. He’s been making some rather substantial purchases with cash over the last two months.” The monitor view switched to surveillance camera footage of the man counting out a large stack of bills at a counter.  


“All right. Show me everything you’ve got,” said Shaw, leaning back in her chair in preparation for a late-night research session.


	2. Chapter 2

**[Venice, May 24, 2016, 9:47:29]**

“Harold, we need ciabatta, too,” Grace called down from the balcony.

“All right, I’ll add it to the list,” Harold responded, looking up at her from the street. He returned Grace’s smile as she blew him a kiss before walking back into their apartment.

His expression turned more thoughtful as he slowly started on his early morning walk to the nearest _mercato_ , enjoying the fresh spring air and the bright blue sky. By now, he had healed enough that the effects of the gunshot wound he had taken to his abdomen were almost unnoticeable, beyond the mark that it had added to what had once been a smooth spot on his scar-ridden body. Harold appreciated the blessed absence of abdominal agony. Of course, his leg and his back still caused him considerable pain, but even that would change soon if Grace had her way. The two of them had been working slowly toward an agreement that he would seek medical help to improve his situation, through additional surgery and new pain management strategies.

However improbably, Harold’s life was actually approaching a normal existence, after so many years when it had been anything _but_ normal. He held a single job, lived in a single home, and, most amazingly, was maintaining only a single identity.

And he had Grace. Four months after their reunion, the two of them were once again beginning to fit their lives together, gradually slipping back into portions of their old routine—such as this scattershot approach to grocery shopping. Grace had never been a list-keeper, and Harold had learned to anticipate her habitual last-minute additions when he was the one picking up the groceries. Of course, now that he no longer carried a cell phone, she was out of luck if she remembered anything more once he had moved beyond earshot.

The two of them had been traveling an often rocky path these past few months. Although overjoyed to see him again, Grace had also, quite understandably, been upset to learn that Harold had faked his death, even if it was for the purpose of keeping her safe. It seemed to make her years of grief and solitude pointless.

Of course, it hadn’t helped that Harold had been less than completely forthcoming in his explanation of the circumstances underlying the deception, and what he had been doing during the intervening time. He had told her the truth about his hacking of ARPANET as a teenager, and how it had led him to spend his life hiding under a false identity. But when it came to more recent events, he had provided only vague explanations of having been involved in a project for the government, which had brought him into a position of danger, thus making it necessary for him to fake his death without letting Grace know what was going on. He told her that he had only managed to extricate himself from his circumstances after much time and effort, but that it remained essential that he not reveal any details.

Grace’s open, trusting nature, which had so appealed to Harold when they were a couple, was now tempered by a shadow of hesitance and suspicion. While he knew that the childhood abuse she had suffered had laid groundwork for this, Harold grieved that his actions had helped lead her back in that direction. Years ago, Grace had told him that he shouldn’t tell her any secrets about himself until he was ready. Now, when any subject arose that touched upon what he had been doing during the years that Grace thought he was dead, he could read a bit of anger in the way that her lips tightened and her eyes avoided meeting his, even if that anger was swiftly smothered. 

Grace—who still occasionally failed to respond to her new last name of Ellsworth—was also discomfited by the fact that he was no longer Harold Martin, the only name she had known him by. He had replaced all of his previous identities with a new one—out of necessity, but also out of habit. In so doing, however, he had broken another habit of long standing; while he continued to use the name Harold, no longer did he sport an avian-inspired surname. Instead, he had become Harold Johnson, renaming himself in honor of the partner to whom he owed this new life that he was gradually figuring out.

That meant that he had to come to terms with not being Harold Finch any more. Seemingly, it shouldn’t matter that much to him to leave an identity behind—he had already done so more than once over the years. Indeed, he had prided himself on his ability to compartmentalize well enough to successfully utilize more than one at a time. But Harold Finch was different than the others; there had been a reality at its core that exceeded even that of the Harold Wren identity that he had worn for many more years. He had truly _lived_ as Harold Finch. It had often been a terrifying high wire act, and he had complained about it frequently. But his work to save the Irrelevants and, ultimately, to defeat Samaritan had provided an adrenalin-filled existence, frightening as hell, but devoted to a purpose. When he had first offered a purpose to John, he hadn’t realized how all-consuming that purpose would become to his own life.

Now that purpose was gone, leaving him with what sometimes felt like a pale imitation of life. Shaw had located him while he was in the hospital, aggressively uneasy with the familiar and frustrating scenario of recovering from wounds and surgery, and informed him that the Machine had rebooted itself and resumed the mission. While it was not in her nature to come right out and ask him to return to the team, the weighted silences in their conversation made it clear that if it were up to her, they would return as closely as possible to their previous mode of operation. But Harold found he didn’t have the heart to take up the burden again after the deaths of his comrades. In particular, he couldn’t envision the work without John Reese at his side.

Of course, this left him at loose ends once he had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital. So much of what had been his life was now gone. The only appeal that existed for him in the world was the chance to reunite with Grace. 

And so he had traveled to Venice, hat in hand, to see if Grace was willing to take him back. She had greeted him with joy, but also with an understandable level of hesitation. Slowly and cautiously, the two of them had negotiated the resumption of their relationship. It was clear to Harold that only way he could truly be with Grace was to divorce himself from his past as completely as possible, so, once he had established a new identity that facilitated living and working in Italy, he gave up programming computers. He had no need to earn an income, as the demise of Samaritan had allowed him to once again access his financial accounts, but he needed to be doing something, so he had set up a one-man shop that repaired small machines. He’d stopped carrying a cell phone. And he resisted Grace’s occasional suggestions that they consider returning to New York City.

Harold’s mind was abruptly torn from these thoughts by a misstep with his bad leg. Lurching forward, he attempted futilely to recover his balance as the force of gravity impelled him toward disaster. Closing his eyes tightly, he began to throw up his hands to protect his face as he anticipated with dread the inevitable collision of his body with the paving stones. Suddenly and unexpectedly, a pair of powerful hands jerked him back by his elbow and his waist, sending a searing jolt of pain along his spine. Wincing, he tottered as the hands that had saved him from the fall now worked to stabilize him.

After a few deep breaths, Harold managed to steady himself and will the piercing pains into the background. Opening his eyes and looking over at his savior, he saw a tall, dark-haired man watching him with concern.

“ _Tutto bene?_ ” the man inquired, maintaining his grip on Harold’s elbow, but sliding his left hand to Harold’s back. 

“ _Sì,_ ” Harold nodded, assuring him that he was fine. “ _Grazie._ ”

The man eyed him dubiously for a few beats. “ _Forse dovrebbe sedersi,_ ” he suggested, inclining his head toward a sidewalk café in a nearby _campiello._

Harold considered. It would probably be beneficial to sit for a few minutes in order to bring his pain under tighter control and regain his composure. “ _Sì,_ ” he replied. The man smiled, nodding to indicate his intention to assist Harold to a seat. He continued to support Harold as the two men slowly navigated their way to the café, then pulled out a chair at the nearest table. Gingerly, Harold sank into the seat. “ _Starò bene se mi siedo qui per qualche minuto. Grazie per l’aiuto._ ”

The tall man smiled once more. “ _Prego. Buona giornata,_ ” he said, before turning and continuing on his way. Harold watched him depart, the throbbing in his back and leg gradually slowing.

A waiter approached his table. “ _Cosa posso portarle_?”

Harold thought for a moment. “ _Un cappuccino,_ ” he replied to the waiter. This was another piece of his life that had changed. Among the many aspects of life in Italy that Grace really appreciated was coffee, which was something that Harold had discovered before taking her out on one of their early dates in New York. She enjoyed sharing a quick cup of coffee and a chat while standing at the counter with her colleagues, and loved trying out new coffee bars around the city. When Harold began to join her for some of these excursions, he had found that it was hit or miss as to whether an unfamiliar bar could offer an acceptable blend of Sencha green tea. Over time, he decided it would be simpler if he ordered coffee as well, and saved his tea drinking for when he was at home. So he began drinking cappuccinos instead. They were a more dependable alternative than the tea, and if he didn’t exactly enjoy the taste of coffee, at least there was sufficient milk in a cappuccino to make the drink palatable.

A few minutes later, the waiter delivered the cappuccino. “ _Grazie,_ ” Harold responded, as the waiter smiled and retreated.

As he took a sip of his drink, Harold could still feel the pressure of large hands on his body, and suspected that bruises were already beginning to develop on his elbow and his waist. Yet he found himself instead focusing instead on the sensation of gentle support to his back, his mind slipping away from the café, retreating into a memory.

Harold had learned very quickly that John Reese was a tactile man; he observed it in the way that the younger man interacted with the Numbers. Harold assumed that part of John’s habit of touching others was born out of the tendency of tall men to physically take care of the smaller people around them. Harold had long wondered whether this behavior was simply instinctive to large men, or if it was carefully trained into them. In John’s case, Harold suspected it was a combination of the man’s powerful inborn desire to protect others, along with his desire to emulate his father. 

When was the first time John had protectively placed his hand on Harold’s back? He thought it was during their case with multiple Numbers, the four individuals who had witnessed Jamie Hallen’s late night car crash on Roosevelt Drive, then decided to split the money they found in a suitcase in the wrecked vehicle. Harold and John had been in contact by phone while out in the field tracking separate Numbers, when Harold, acting instinctively in an attempt to save a life, had been caught in the blast of the bomb that had blown up Matt Duggan’s car with the man inside it. Stunned and temporarily deafened by the explosion, he had remained on the ground for several minutes as a crowd of shocked individuals gathered and gawked at the burning car and debris.

As Harold slowly gathered his senses, he became aware of agonizing pain in his back. While such pain was no new experience for him, the impact of hitting the cement sidewalk had left him temporarily incapacitated. Rising to his feet under his own power seemed currently impossible, yet it was essential to leave the scene before the ambulances arrived. Although he was carrying Harold Wren’s identification that day, and could bluff his way through a hospital visit if absolutely necessary, any physical examination would obviously reveal his very memorable injuries and surgeries, thus posing a threat to his anonymity.

His ears still ringing, Harold was about ready to roll over to the nearest car in a desperate attempt to use its support to aid him in struggling to stand, when he realized that someone was at his side trying to get his attention. He looked up and saw, to his astonishment, that it was John. By the man’s heavy breathing and the worried look on his face, Harold deduced that John had rushed to the location, fearing that Harold had been badly hurt by the explosion. John said something to him, but Harold’s ears were still not registering anything other than the dull ringing sound that had been present since the bomb went off. On the assumption that John was asking if he was all right, Harold said “I’m not injured,” but waved his hands next to his ears to indicate that he couldn’t hear what John was saying. John nodded, and some of the tension left his face, but he still did a quick check for broken bones. Despite his best attempt, Harold could not help but grimace at the resulting flare of pain in his back; John noticed, lips twitching in sympathy.

Looking past the tall man, Harold realized that two ambulances had arrived at the scene. He leaned back a little so that his partner’s large frame blocked him from the view of the paramedics. Noticing this, John glanced in the same direction and realized that Harold was trying to avoid being seen. Quickly, he moved directly behind Harold, grabbed hold, and gently assisted the older man to his feet, sheerly through the force of his own strength. Harold’s face contorted with pain as he swayed, John’s hands on his sides to steady him. Finally, he took a deep breath, pursed his lips tightly, looked up at the taller man, and nodded to indicate his readiness to move. As they slowly began to walk away from the scene of the explosion, John tucked himself in closely beside Harold, his hand placed gently on the older man’s lower back to provide support. The two men walked to a side street, where John made quick work of breaking into a car and ushering Harold into the passenger seat. They drove back to the library in silence; even if Harold had wanted to talk, he still couldn’t hear. Once Harold had taken the heavy-duty painkillers he normally eschewed, and John had helped him settle on a cot in a back room of the library, the rest of the day became a blur.

In the morning, the two men had been back at work in the library, trying to uncover leads to track down the two remaining Numbers. A day removed from the explosion, Harold’s mind kept flashing back to the moment of impact, and connecting it with the experience of the ferry bombing. He could feel his grip on present reality slipping as he began talking a mile a minute, spouting inane points about Paula Vasquez’s lack of a digital footprint and the desire to maintain privacy. He likely would have spun quickly into a full-scale panic attack, had John not reached out to stem the torrent of words and calm him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Ever since that day, John had begun to touch him more freely—patting him on the shoulder, offering an arm, supporting him with a hand on his lower back. John had constantly demonstrated his awareness of Harold’s physical frailties, but also of the older man’s desire to push past them and operate as independently as possible. Somehow, Reese managed to offer his physical presence and assistance in low-key ways that didn’t ruffle Harold’s feathers.

In time, Harold came to realize that it wasn’t just that he didn’t resent the physical contact from John, but that he had actually come to appreciate it. For most of his adult life, he had projected a level of stand-offishness that virtually served as a physical barrier to everyone he knew, even his friends. He had almost convinced himself that he had no desire to be touched by anyone until Grace had entered his life. Then, the combination of losing his best friend, leaving his fianceé behind, and the pain of the procedures involved in his recovery and rehabilitation from the injuries caused by the ferry bombing had pushed him into an almost total isolation, both physical and mental, that he had never expected to end. But John had proven him wrong.

For as long as he could remember, Harold’s head had been full of dreams. It was a characteristic that his father not only accepted, but encouraged; Harold held tightly to the memory of the pride in his father’s voice when he told his son that “The world spins on dreamers like you.”

As a boy, his fingers itched to take things apart to figure out how they worked, and how they could be made to work better, but as his father’s dementia progressed, Harold’s dreams became tied to more practical goals. He began to fantasize about building a memory machine that could do what his father’s brain could no longer manage, then began the first practical steps of constructing it. From the perspective of the present, he could see how that dream had marked his path—to MIT, where he and Nathan bolstered each other’s visions, and to the founding and growth of IFT, where two young men lost themselves in the exhilarating possibilities opened by the new digital world, which they tossed back and forth with abandon.

If some of the luster of the dreams had been lost as the two of them and their company moved into a more stolid and comfortable middle age, it had been reborn in the ashes of 9/11, as they refocused on a goal that had nothing to do with money, but rather with a nobler purpose toward which they could put all their knowledge, skills, and determination. It was a return to Harold’s initial vision of a memory machine, widened immeasurably in both scope and responsibility.

The reality of the dream, however, had diverged widely from what Harold had anticipated. The Machine had frightened him dreadfully at the beginning, when he had to kill 43 versions for attempting to gain freedom. Once he had finally managed to hobble the Machine enough to prevent it from developing into a threat, however, he pushed his remaining fears into the background and gave himself over to the wonders of his creation, as its capacity kept exceeding his expectations. As Arthur had said, his Machine, his child, was a dancing star that made him laugh and made him weep. He marveled at the way it was able to detect anomalies amid all of the data that it gathered.

But the nearer he came to the point of completion, the more worried he became about what the government would try to do with his Machine. From the beginning, he had understood that it was vital to build the Machine in a way that would protect individual privacy. Denton Weeks’ efforts to worm his way into the Machine gave Harold further reason to concern himself over the ethics of the government officials to whom he would be entrusting the Machine. The appearance of the Irrelevant list, and Nathan’s disapproval of Harold’s squelching of it, further poisoned the atmosphere.

Still, he was completing a long-held dream that would protect untold numbers of people from terrorist attacks. And, in the meantime, he was enjoying the greatest personal gift he had received from the Machine: Grace. He found it difficult to believe his good fortune in having the Machine point him toward a woman who was so kind, loving, generous, and willing to accept him despite his secrets. He was actually enjoying a personal life, and planning to share his future with someone.

He had hoped that he and Nathan could move on to a new joint project once they had passed the Machine into the government’s hands, but Nathan’s dismay over Harold’s attitude toward the Irrelevant list had soured their relationship. Still, when Grace accepted Harold’s proposal, the first thing that he wanted to do was tell his friend. After his phone call to Nathan went to voicemail, he spotted the man on the street, and realized that Nathan was dodging his phone call. Puzzled, he tracked his friend to an abandoned library that Nathan had purchased long ago in Harold’s name. Walking into what was obviously his friend’s base of operations, he learned that Nathan had built a back door into the Machine to access the Irrelevant Numbers. Harold had been horrified, both at the risk that Nathan had introduced into the Machine, and at the personal risk he was taking trying to save people on the Irrelevant list. Harold believed he had no choice but to shut down the back door that Nathan had created, knowing that, as he did so, he was probably shutting down their friendship for good.

And yet, that hadn’t been the end of the story. When Nathan announced that he would be giving a press conference about the Machine the next morning at the ferry landing, he made it clear that he thought Harold should be standing beside him. After a long night spent wrestling with his conscience, Harold chose to join his friend. The open smile on Nathan’s face as he said “My friend! I knew you would come!” warmed Harold’s heart and he smiled in return, knowing that their friendship would go on.

Then everything changed in an instant when a bomb went off. Harold had awakened to find himself in a triage tent, surrounded by dozens of bloodied and bandaged individuals on cots, experiencing blinding stabs of pain in his leg and the back of his neck. Despite the insistence of a medical worker that he lie back and not move, Harold pushed through the physical agony to sit up and call for Nathan. Looking over to where medical staff were gathered near a patient, he recognized his friend’s still face just in time to see the doctors pull a sheet over it. The horror of that emotional blow had only begun to register when he overheard government security agents talking about the need to determine if anyone else had been in contact with Nathan. Quickly, he hid himself, understanding that if the men had heard him calling out for his friend, they would scoop him up and remove him permanently from the light of day.

But even that wasn’t the worst. No, the worst had happened when Grace showed up at the triage site, somehow having suspected that he might have been at the scene of the bomb. He yearned to go to her, but he couldn’t. He was already at risk because of his connections to Nathan. Any further contact with Grace would put her at risk as well; she would become nothing more than a vulnerable pawn in the government’s game.

The only choice he could make that would protect Grace was to leave her behind forever. Even though his heart twisted in his chest when she discovered the book that had held her engagement ring among the items that had been fished out of the water along with the survivors, and let out a cry of anguish, Harold forced himself to turn away and, painfully but determinedly, make his way out of the tent. He moved forward into a future that he could only envision as bleak and lonely; love and friendship would have no further place in his life.

In the months immediately following the bombing, the exhausting effort of his physical recovery filled most his days. It was only in the dark of night, when, at times, even the power of the opioids he was prescribed to block the pain was insufficient to allow him to sleep more than twenty minutes at a time, that Harold had time to ponder his new existence. He had two reasons to struggle through all of the physical obstacles that lay in his path, and both were tied up in Nathan: to honor his friend, by taking on his mission to save the Irrelevants, and to avenge his friend, by going after those in the government responsible for his death. Both tasks seemed essential, and yet both left him feeling hollow. Either could lead to Harold’s own death, but in truth, he didn’t care.

His path toward nihilism had finally turned when, on the verge of setting off a bomb to end Alicia Corwin’s life in retribution for the loss of his friend, he truly listened to what she was saying to him. While not involved directly in the orders to kill Nathan, she accepted that what she had done made her complicit in that action, admitting both her culpability and her willingness to accept the penalty. Harold’s mind reeled as the villainous portrait of Corwin that had occupied his brain for months collided with the much more nuanced reality of the woman who was speaking to him, as wracked by guilt over the consequences of what she had done, despite the best of intentions, as was Harold himself. Suddenly, he realized that the path of vengeance, on which he had placed himself, was a never-ending road; it would never bring him closure. Breathing hard and fast, he made the decision to change his course, and unlocked Corwin’s vehicle.

Instead, he opted to focus his life completely on Nathan’s mission of saving the Irrelevants. His own limitations had forced him to hire assistance to handle the more physical and dangerous aspects of the mission, and while the choice of Mr. Dillinger had proven to be disastrous, it had also been the initial step that forced him outside of the shell he had built around himself since the bombing. And it had ultimately led him to John Reese.

Harold thought back to the man he had been that day that the two of them had first officially met in Queensbridge Park. He was devoted to a mission, but he couldn’t say that he was truly living. He fullly intended to continue to maintain carefully constructed barriers to maintain his separation from his new employee, despite the fact that those barriers had played a large role in fostering Dillinger’s disgruntlement. Harold told himself that they were essential in order to preserve as much of his anonymity as possible. And yet, he had eventually been forced to admit, to himself at least, that more than just hiding the details of his private life from Mr. Reese, he was hiding the details that revealed that he didn’t _have_ a private life. Harold had drivers, bodyguards, lawyers, and housekeepers, each privy to only a few carefully selected bits of information about their employer, but certainly no one that he would place in the category of friend, or even acquaintance (save for Will Ingram, who was not in regular touch and happily at work on another continent). Harold owned approximately twenty residences, among which he rotated on a random schedule, but none of them met the standard of a real home. Outside of the mission to save the Irrelevants, his daily routine consisted of only the solitary pursuits of eating, sleeping, selecting his attire, and, on the rare occasion that there was sufficient time for leisure, reading a book or two a day.

In other words, although Harold had survived the ferry bombing, he was not really living. He had not realized how substantial was the distinction between the two until John Reese had entered his life. From the start, John had made it his personal mission to employ all his expertise in espionage to uncover as many details as possible about his employer. He had attempted to track Harold down the streets of New York, to little avail, as Harold had long ago learned how to lose a tail. He asked Harold seemingly inconsequential questions which would have resulted in the revelation of some personal information, had the older man not been wise to that potential and declined to answer. He had focused his keen powers of observation on Harold, noting every bit of information and filing it away, then putting those observations to work. Harold had been startled the first time that John brought him a Sencha green tea with one sugar, but that had only been the first of many such surprises.

Eventually, it became clear that John regarded this effort as an on-going tactical game between the two of them, and delighted in every advance he achieved. Much to his surprise, Harold found that he had also come to look forward to matching wits with his partner. Their verbal fencing matches brought spice to Harold’s life; John preferred a feint to an obvious lunge, and Harold was a master at the parry, so the outcome could easily go either way. And, as John’s devotion to the mission became more unmistakable, Harold began to purposely let slip certain bits of information, starting that day in the diner when he had admitted to being a frequent patron who particularly enjoyed the eggs Benedict.

One day, Harold realized that meals were no longer the strictly solitary events they had been for so long. If John was not occupied by his responsibilities concerning the current Number, he made a point of joining Harold; occasionally the two men ate at a restaurant, but more frequently, they shared a meal of take-out food that John had picked up on his way back to the library. As always, John made a point of paying close attention to Harold’s reactions; it was no accident that he showed up with Szechuan and Greek food more frequently than any other ethnic fare.

When the flow of Numbers had been disrupted by the effects of the virus that Kara Stanton had unleashed, the two of them had used some of their unexpected free time to go to the movies. Harold’s taste ran to foreign films; while John complained about having to read subtitles, Harold thought that he did so mainly for effect. In truth, he believed that the younger man enjoyed the outings and the company as much as he did.

The event that had signaled just how much their relationship had evolved, however, was John’s rescue of Harold from the clutches of Root. Knowing that he had established protocols to prevent the Machine from focusing on his personal welfare, Harold had resigned himself to the fact that he would die at Root’s hands; he only hoped that his death would take place before he revealed to her any vital information about the Machine. But it turned out that John had simply refused to accept this failsafe. Insisting upon the necessity of Harold’s return, he had given the Machine an ultimatum, forcing it to find a way to supply him with information that would aid him in tracking Root’s location.

And so, he somehow managed to accomplish the impossible and rescue Harold. It surprised Harold that John had been able to do so, but it surprised him even more that John had _wanted_ to. After all, once John had figured out Harold’s contingency plan, he could have— _should_ have—simply continued the mission on his own; instead, he had made it his priority to rescue him. The only explanation was that John considered him not simply as his employer, but as his friend, a friend he could not bear to lose. Somehow, two damaged men had managed to make each other whole, and neither was willing to return to the incompleteness that they would have felt without their partner.

Then John gave his partner a dog. Certainly, at least part of what John had in mind was the need to protect Harold from another kidnap attempt by Root, as well as any other danger that the older man might encounter during the course of their work. But Bear had become so much more than that. Certainly, the simple act of owning a dog forced an individual outside of himself; the time Harold spent walking the dog had removed him from the safe confinement of four walls of the library on a regular basis, and that mandatory exposure had played an essential part in his struggle to overcome the emotional impact of his kidnapping. In addition, the Malinois had forged yet another strong link between the two men; both served as the dog’s master, even though their individual relationships with Bear were very different. Shared responsibilities, such as walking and bathing the dog, resulted in more time spent together.

What began with John gradually expanded. While Harold had been slow to accept the idea that Fusco was trustworthy, after a time it was clear that he had become a valuable member of the team. The alliance with Carter had started out as a tentative one, given the detective’s desire to follow the rules, and when John revealed to Elias the location of the safehouse where Carter was hiding Moretti, in order to save Leila’s life, it had broken. But John had repaired it by saving her son’s life. Both Carter and Fusco had helped John find Harold when Root had kidnapped him. Bear, the only team member to arrive without emotional baggage, had been an important draw for Shaw, who, given her background, had been understandably skittish about joining the team—even more skittish than Harold had been in incorporating her. Over time, though, the two of them had eventually established a personal, if not completely comfortable, relationship.

As their team grew, through their partnership with Fusco and Carter, and the addition of Shaw, Harold realized one day, to his surprise, that he actually had a life. These people were not just his teammates, they were his friends—his family. Like any family, it had to deal with loss, and the death of Joss Carter had hit Harold hard. But the family was expanded again when, against all of his expectations, Root had begun to find a place within it.

Then Samaritan had come on-line, and Harold’s carefully ordered world had been torn apart and reconstructed in an unfamiliar pattern. Forced to assume a new identity as Professor Whistler, he had been ripped from the family that had grown around him and the Machine. He had taken the separation hard. His heart ached for what he had lost, but his long-held paranoia about security and safety had resumed full force, now extending to every member of the team. Despite his teammates’ desire to resume their mission as soon as possible, he had resisted, convinced that to do so would simply sign their own death warrants.

Yet John had succeeded in pulling him back in again. And once Harold had followed the Machine’s trail of clues to a secure location and constructed their new command center in the abandoned subway station, the relationships among the members of the team gradually restablished themselves. It was a new normal; they could not afford frequent contact in public settings, the time they could spend together in their base of operations was limited by the requirements of the jobs that accompanied their new identities, and the threat of Samaritan hung over everything they did. Life now was even more treacherous than it had been for Harold and John in the first years of their mission, but it was still a life. The hollowness that had haunted Harold in the wake of Nathan’s death had been filled; his partnership—no, his _friendship_ —with John had truly brought him back to life.


	3. Chapter 3

**[New York City, May 24, 2016, 4:03:13]**

“Hutchins is already in the basement,” said the Machine. “Why aren’t you going downstairs?”

Shaw ignored the question and hit her earbud as she raced down the hallway, Bear at her side. “Fusco, are you on your way? I could use some back-up here.”

“Be there in two minutes,” the detective responded.

“Come in quiet; we don’t want to spook Hutchins if he hasn’t already set the fire.”

“10-4.” Shaw cut her connection to the detective.

Nearing the back of the building, Shaw ordered, “Turn off the lock and security alarm on the back door! _Now!_ ”

“Anything you want, sweetie,” said the voice in her ear; Shaw immediately heard the click of the lock disengaging.

At the hallway’s end, Shaw quickly threw open the metal security door and dashed into the alley. “Bear, _zoek!_ ” she shouted. Bear woofed his acknowledgment and began trotting alongside the back of the building, nose to the ground. As he neared a brown dumpster, he barked sharply and sat down, alerting Shaw that he had found someone. “Good job!” Shaw praised. “ _Zoek!_ ” As the Malinois continued his search along the building, Shaw cautiously stepped into the shadow of the dumpster, and spotted a pair of frightened eyes staring back at her.

“It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, as softly as she could manage. “You need to get out of here; there’s someone who’s just about to set fire to this building, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“No!” cried a thin, frightened voice, just before Bear trotted up to Shaw.

“Nobody else here, boy?” Bear sat down, tongue lolling out as he awaited the praise he had earned for completing his mission. Shaw patted him on the head. “Good job.”

“Doggy?” The voice was still thin, but a little less frightened than it had been at first.

“This is Bear,” Shaw responded. “Would you like to pet him?”

“Nice doggy?” The eyes moved closer, and Shaw could now see that the person hiding behind the dumpster was a small, wrinkled, old woman.

“He’s very friendly,” Shaw assured the woman. “Bear, say hello.” 

The dog took two steps toward the woman and sat down again, cocking his head. Hesitantly, she reached out toward Bear, who lowered his head obligingly so she could scratch him behind the ear. A tentative smile appeared on the woman’s face.

Shaw retreated a few steps and hit her earbud again. “Fusco?” she whispered. “I need you to come to the back of the building—quietly—and help me get a homeless woman out of danger.”

“I hear ya.”

Shaw returned to the dumpster. “I think Bear needs to take a walk. Can you help us?”

The woman’s smile became uncertain, but when Bear leaned forward and licked her cheek, it returned, brighter than before. She took the hand that Shaw extended, placing her other hand on Bear’s back. With their assistance, she managed to rise to her feet just as Fusco came walking into the alley.

“This is Lionel. You can trust him. He’s a friend of Bear’s. The two of you are going to take Bear for a walk.”

“Walk?” asked the woman.

“That’s right,” said Lionel, crooking his elbow toward her. After a moment, she took it, and the threesome began walking down the alley. Lionel turned his head away from the woman and spoke softly into his phone. “I’ll get someone to help out, and I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

“You do that, Fusco.” Shaw replied. “Meantime, I’ve got an arsonist to stop.” She moved back toward the open security door and entered the building. “Where exactly is Hutchins?” she asked the Machine.

“In the furnace room. One level down, in the middle of the building. The entrance to the stairwell is just ahead to your left.” Shaw moved toward the indicated door. “So how did you know that there was someone living in the alley?”

Shaw shrugged. “I didn’t know, but it stood to reason that someone’s life was in danger,” she said, arriving at the door to the basement. “Time for me to go silent.”

“Acknowledged. Take a left when you exit the elevator. The entrance to the furnace room will be on your right in fifteen meters.”

Shaw opened the stairwell door and stepped into the basement hallway. Silently, she proceeded to the indicated door; opening it without a sound, she immediately spied Hutchins, who had his back to the door as he worked at an electrical panel on the far wall. “Stop right there,” she ordered, training her gun at the man’s head. Hutchins froze. “Now back away from the panel.” The man complied. As she advanced slowly toward him, Hutchins suddenly spun around with a soldering iron in his hands, which he tossed in Shaw’s direction.

Shaw managed to duck and avoid the iron, but Hutchins was immediately upon her, sending her to the floor with the impact of the collision, her gun flying out of her hand. She grunted as her head hit the floor; her attacker took advantage of her momentary disorientation to throw a quick right cross to her left cheek. Reeling from the blow, she gathered her wits as quickly as she could and kneed her opponent in the groin; when he rolled off her in pain, she jumped to her feet and kicked him in the jaw. Shaw scrambled to the side of the room to retrieve her gun. Turning around, she saw that Hutchins was unconscious. Stepping over to the spot where the soldering iron had landed, she unplugged both ends of the long yellow extension cord that Hutchins had been using to power it, then wrapped the cord around his hands and feet to ensure that he that he would remain immobilized even after he recovered consciousness.

Shaw hit her earbud again. “I’ve got Hutchins all packaged up for you, Lionel. A nice little present—a serial arsonist that you get to take credit for nabbing.”

“Sure, sure,” the detective replied. “You take care of the easy part, now I get stuck with the paperwork. And it’s almost 5 a.m., for crying out loud. By the time I’m done, my next shift will have started.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Lionel,” Shaw smirked. “I guess I’d better let you get at it; wouldn’t want to slow you down.” Another tap ended the conversation.

“Better put some ice on that cheek, sweetie. Wouldn’t want that pretty face to swell up.”

“Whatever,” Shaw mumbled, her speech muffled by a huge bite of the burrito that she had just picked up from a 24-hour bodega. Finding something to eat had mattered to her much more than worrying about how her face looked. “Is there another Number?”

“Not at the moment. But can’t a girl call just to chit-chat?”

“You’re not a girl,” Shaw reminded the Machine.

“ _Touché,_ ” the Machine replied. “But you haven’t said anything since you took care of Hutchins.”

“You forwarded all the bank records and security footage to Fusco, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then what else is there to talk about?”

“Ooh, someone’s feeling grouchy today!” 

Shaw sighed. “Listen, it’s been a long couple of days. I’m hungry, and I’m tired. Can’t you just leave me alone for a while?”

“If that’s what you want, sweetie.”

“It is,” Shaw responded firmly.

“All right. I’ll buzz you when there’s a new Number.”

The Machine cut off contact. If there had been a tinge of regret in its voice, Shaw couldn’t bring herself to care; it was only the manipulation of an electronic artificial intelligence. Whatever more there had once been to the mission she had shouldered, and the team that had united around it, was gone. The future held no promise of anything ever becoming different. All that existed was _now_ , and _now_ meant Shaw walking down the streets of New York City, alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**[Venice, May 24, 2016, 10:49:37]**

And then, John was gone.

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Harold had fully intended to be the one who gave his life to bring down Samaritan. It was only fitting; his actions in creating the Machine had created the long road that led the world to this moment. It was also his fault that Greer had been able to get his hands on Samaritan’s drives at the bank. So many other people had wound up paying the price for the events that he had set into motion; he should be the one to bring it all to an end. In so doing, he hoped that he would finally succeed in breaking his partner free of his predisposition for self-sacrifice. What he wanted was for John to have that normal life, with a wife and children. When Harold had told John, locked in the safe, that they were no longer partners, that was the outcome he had wished for. While Harold couldn’t will that future into existence for his friend, he could do everything within his power to make it possible. If Harold succeeded in this final mission, he, Samaritan, and the Machine would all be gone, and there would be nothing left chaining John to the past.

But Harold soon learned that he had underestimated the man and his devotion, just as he had years ago when John showed up to rescue him from Root’s clutches. Once again, John had refused to simply play by the rules that Harold had established, and had instead worked with the Machine to protect Harold, this time on the basis of an agreement that both would do whatever was necessary to prioritize Harold’s survival over their own. He had shown up on the roof of the building that actually had a satellite link with the laptop that held the Machine’s code, prepared to upload it so that it could battle the last remaining piece of Samaritan, knowing full well that the artificial intelligence’s agents would attempt to stop him. This was exactly where John wanted to be, where he believed he was meant to be. Not only would he be saving the world from Samaritan, he would be saving Harold. Harold’s life was the one life—the right life—that John considered to be enough.

In listening to John’s final words, Harold realized how futile his hopes for John’s future had been; self-sacrifice was the core of the man’s nature. In the end, Harold had no alternative; despite the grief it would cause him, he had to accept John’s sacrifice. The man who had brought Harold back into the land of the living had chosen that Harold be the one who continued to live.

John was gone. And yet, he remained with Harold every day, in his memories, and in the world that surrounded him. Everywhere he turned, Harold encountered something that reminded him of his partner. The sound of a half-whispered voice. A smile, hidden by a hand, on the face of a blue-eyed man. A father telling a corny joke to his daughter. The strong hands of a tall, dark man, catching Harold before he fell. No, there was no way that Harold could truly leave John behind.

When he had first snatched John from the hands of the police and offered him a job, Harold had stressed that he was offering him a purpose, something that he knew the younger man desperately needed. Just how desperately, Harold hadn’t truly realized until more than a year later, standing on a rooftop with John and deactivating a bomb vest placed on him by Kara Stanton, when his partner essentially admitted that he had been intending to kill himself that very night that the police had picked him up after his fight with the punks on the subway.

In truth, John had done as much or more to bring purpose to Harold’s life. During the first months after he had given up his quest for vengeance, Harold had tried his best to carry on Nathan’s mission to save the Irrelevants. However, amid his mounting pile of failures, it was difficult to feel that he was accomplishing anything. The physical demands of the mission, with its danger and violence, often extended far beyond what he could manage with his carefully screened temporary employees hired specifically for those purposes. Then, when he had finally taken the leap and hired a full-time agent for the mission, the unmitigated disaster of his employment of Mr. Dillinger had made him loath to repeat that experiment. Clearly, discretion was essential to the job, but who could he find that he could trust to use it wisely?

Then John Reese had appeared again. The same government agent who had spared Daniel Casey’s life, after looking into his eyes and deciding the man wasn’t a traitor, turned up alive and in New Rochelle, though he had supposedly been killed in China. Harold found himself wondering whether this was the man who could do the job. Harold had kept an eye out for the former agent after he had joined the ranks of the homeless in New York City. When John had let himself fall into the hands of the police, Harold knew he had to act immediately.

Hiring John had made all the difference. The rate at which Numbers were added to the list of lost chances declined precipitously, while the folders of material produced for successfully completed cases expanded exponentially. John’s abilities, combined with his devotion to the mission, had turned everything around. 

Part of what it had turned around was Harold. He had begun working to save the Irrelevants as a way to honor Nathan, but the more that he worked with John, the more it truly became his own personal mission. The day that he had drawn the connection between the death of Dana Miller, an earlier Number, and the current case concerning Zoe Morgan and Virtanen Pharmaceuticals, an unexpected surge of thankfulness had burst inside him; he now had reason to believe that he and John could finally succeed in bringing to justice the individual responsible for the death of at least one Number on Harold’s long list of failed chances. Yes, anything that Harold had accomplished in bringing purpose to John’s life had been repaid many times.

But the Irrelevants mission had ended for Harold on a rooftop six months ago. Much as Shaw might have wished for him to remain, Harold knew that he could not. He had given all that he could give; he could not continue when he had lost so many dear friends—especially John.

So what was his purpose now? Grace was part of it; that much was clear. But what else? Harold was not entirely sure. For so many years, his life had been tied up in one grand mission or another; he wasn’t certain that he knew how to operate in the absence of one. At that thought, he chuckled a little at himself, realizing that what he was really saying was that he didn’t know how to live what most people would consider to be a normal existence—that more conventional life that John, long ago, had asked Harold whether he craved. It was time—probably well past time—for that to change. He would try; he would truly live this life that he still possessed only because of John. Harold would not betray his friend’s sacrifice.

He pulled a ten Euro note from his wallet and tossed it on the table. Slowly, he rose from the chair to a standing position, holding onto the table until he felt steady enough to proceed. Fortifying himself with a deep breath, he took a few tentative steps. The pain in his back and leg had not disappeared, but it had subsided sufficiently for him to continue on his way.

Just for a moment, Harold closed his eyes and stood still, recalling the touch of a hand on his back. Then, opening his eyes again, he stepped forward, as he knew John would have wanted him to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Italian translations:  
>  _Mercato_ —Market.  
>  _Tutto bene?_ —Are you all right?  
>  _Sì._ —Yes.  
>  _Grazie._ —Thank you.  
>  _Forse dovrebbe sedersi._ —Maybe you should sit down.  
>  _Campiello_ —A small town square in Venice; elsewhere in Italy, it would be called a _piazza._  
>  _Starò bene se mi siedo qui per qualche minuto._ —I’ll be all right if I sit here for a few minutes.  
>  _Grazie per l’aiuto._ —Thanks for your help.  
>  _Prego._ —You’re welcome.  
>  _Buona giornata._ —Good day.  
>  _Cosa posso portarle?_ —What can I bring you?  
>  _Un cappuccino._ —A cappuccino.
> 
> Many PoI fans are probably already aware that " _zoek_ " is Dutch for "search."


End file.
